US Defense Department researchers are dusting off an idea from old Sci-Fi
novels: space-based ray guns that can blast enemy satellites and other targets
in space.

Michael Griffin, the Pentagon’s defense undersecretary for research and
engineering, has told
military website Defense One that the US may resurrect work on so-called
neutral particle beams – a space-based weapon that was mulled in the 1990s.

“Directed energy is more than just big lasers,” Defense One quoted Griffin as
saying. “That’s important. High-powered microwave approaches can effect an
electronics kill. The same with the neutral particle beam systems we explored
briefly in the 1990s” for use in space-based anti-missile systems.”

Griffin believes such weapons can be “useful in a variety of environments”
and have the “advantage of being non-attributable.” By this, he means that it
can be tough to blame an attack with a particle weapon on any particular culprit
since it leaves no evidence behind of who or even what did the damage.

Military intelligence website globalsecurity.org says neutral
particle beams have several properties that make them attractive for space based
applications. For one thing, they travel in straight lines unaffected by the
earth’s magnetic field. They also have a very short flight time to targets even
at extended ranges and can penetrate deeply into a target vehicle, thus making
shielding relatively ineffective.

“In the case of a nuclear warhead, these particles are capable of heating the
nuclear material by fission processes, neutron generation and ionization,” globalsecurity.org said.

Griffin, however, ducked questions about whether neutral particle beams are
being eyed as a possible defense against North Korean or Russian missiles.